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International Coffee Partners: 20 years of hands-on smallholder family support
Back in 2001 during the devastating coffee crisis that led to severe hardships for coffee communities and millions of smallholder coffee farmers a select group of dedicated coffee companies decided to cooperate and join forces for fostering effective solutions that help producers and their families to move out of poverty.
Now in 2021, International Coffee Partners (ICP) is marking 20 years of continued smallholder coffee farmer family support. As a strong pre-competitive partnership of eight leading family-owned European coffee companies, ICP has proven the importance of innovative, holistic project concepts and cooperation within the coffee sector to tackle the challenges of farmer families.
Starting with the five founding members Löfbergs, Lavazza, Neumann Gruppe, Paulig and Tchibo in 2001, the non-profit partnership was subsequently joined by Delta Cafés, Franck and Joh. Johannson.
“The impact of our work is a major achievement to highlight how important it is that coffee sector companies work together in a pre-competitive setup,” says Kathrine Löfberg, Chairperson of ICP.
Join the 20 years ICP event “Focus on People! How the coffee sector can ensure smallholder families’ livelihoods” on Tuesday, June 15th at 10 am CEST to get to know ICP and follow a discussion about the opportunities of holistic support to coffee farmer families and working together for effectively tackling the challenges ahead.
20 years of impact - join the event!
Join the 20 years ICP event “Focus on People! How the coffee sector can ensure smallholder families’ livelihoods” on Tuesday, June 15th at 10 am CEST to get to know ICP and follow a discussion about the opportunities of holistic support to coffee farmer families and working together for effectively tackling the challenges ahead.
>> Register here
Long-term commitment
ICP so far reached almost 100.000 families in 13 coffee producing countries. Working with a long-term commitment based on 5-year strategies, ICP recently reworked its Theory of Change, emphasizing strongly the holistic livelihood approach combining the topics of gender, youth, family business, farmer organizations, and the adaption to climate change.
“We do not only implement projects. We focus on the families at the center of our work, looking at their potentials and needs. Together with them and among the ICP-Shareholders we learn and further develop our approaches and our operations,” says Kathrine Löfberg.
About ICP
International Coffee Partners (ICP) is a pre-competitive initiative of the leading European family-owned coffee companies, Delta Cafés of Portugal, Franck of Croatia, Paulig of Finland, Joh. Johannson of Norway, Löfbergs of Sweden, Lavazza of Italy, Neumann Gruppe of Germany and Tchibo of Germany. ICP’s objective is to contribute know-how to establish a sustainable coffee sector in key producing countries through the implementation of best-practice projects in coffee farmer communities. ICP projects are implemented by Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS).
